Dreams that do come true can be as unsettling as those that don't.

[goddessnanshe.livejournal.com]

Wednesday, sometime, somewhere in Dream

Once upon time there was a beautiful princess. Her hair was the colour of jet and her skin was the colour of nutmeg, and each of her teeth were like pearls. Flowers grew where she walked, so that the fields around the tower that was her home was carpeted in blooms as white as snow. The princess was very happy, all save for one thing: her fear that one day the thorn of one of the flowers would prick her. Her servants combed the field for thorns every day, trimming the stems so that it would be safe for her to walk. But still the princess was afraid, and she neglected to notice that each month the forest encroached closer on her home, until one day, standing in her field of flowers, she looked up to see the trees looming around her, undergrowth thick with thorns. Frightened, she fled inside, and as she ran she began her first bleeding, and the blood that trickled down her thigh fell to the earth and stained the roses around the tower a deep and brilliant red.

Inside the tower the princess was afraid that she was dying, for her father had always insisted that royal blood was the most precious of all things and must never be spilled. Weeping, she showed the blood to her old nurse, who laughed and kissed her cheek and told her this was the secret gift of women, and now she was blessed. So the princess wiped her eyes, and was no longer afraid of bleeding. But the thorns of the forest came for her all the same.

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[sapphira-ststep.livejournal.com]

"If you don't mind me asking," Kate says to me, "how did you lose your face?"

"A man stole it from me," I say, and my fingers reach up to trace where it should have been. "He was a traveller, came down the road with a patchwork coat and an apology and a smile, and I was living outside--" I hesitate a moment. "I think it was outside Excolo," I say, "but perhaps I would have remembered the word better if that was so. I let him in, and gave him bread and water and a seat by the fire, and while I slept he cut my face from me. When I woke I did not know myself, and so I set out looking for him or for my face, and I found neither." I shrug a little, because those were hard times on hard roads but they seem... curiously distant. I suppose that is not so surprising in light of Arik's claim.

"But I heard of the wishes that might be granted, if you caught one of the fish from that sea and promised to let it go, and so I crossed to that beach to try. I think my face might be near, now," I add. "I am seeing myself, our selves, here, but from elsewhere. But I've seen no-one that looks like him."

[syl-thorn.livejournal.com]

Deeper, deeper, as th'sun fades from sight 'n th'warmth leaches away. But m'fur an' m'fat protect me, an' m'eyes adjust t'th'dark, an'I got plenty'a air left. M'tail pumps, pushin' me down, down, t'wards whatever't izzits callin' me. Can't tell how far 'way't is yet. Hope ain't much further. Gotta feelin' I ain't 'lone down'ere...